Greg Hansen: 1997 Cats enjoyed a magic moment

Mike Bibby cuts down the net after the Wildcats defeated
Kentucky, their third # 1 seed that they knocked off during their
championship run. Photo By David Sanders.

In celebration of Arizona's centennial, the Star is
featuring our picks for the 100 best athletes, moments and teams.
Throughout the summer, we have been showcasing our list. Here is
the ninth of Greg Hansen's top 10.

1997 National Championship

In the final hours before Arizona was to meet No. 1 Kansas at
the 1997 Sweet 16, Lute Olson embraced the psychology and magnified
the burden of playing the 34-1 Jayhawks.

He looked into the TV lights and asked, defiantly, "Who is David
and who is Goliath?" which seemed to be coaching suicide. What
coach would provoke the Jayhawks, who had won 16 consecutive games
and were 10 1/2-point favorites?

At his team's shoot-around several hours before the game in
Birmingham, Ala., Olson tossed white towels to his interior
players, A.J. Bramlett, Donnell Harris, Gene Edgerson and Bennett
Davison.

"White towels," Olson said. "Surrender flags. Step up if you
want to surrender."

Edgerson threw his towel to the floor and stomped on it. The
others followed.

Arizona stunned KU, 85-82, and Olson announced that "the ghosts
are now gone."

No longer would he, nor his basketball program, be remembered
for stinging NCAA tournament exits against Santa Clara and East
Tennessee State, or for tears-inducing setbacks at the doorstep of
1988, 1989 and 1994 national championships.

Olson's 1997 team - with no seniors in the playing rotation -
finished fifth in the Pac-10, its worst finish in Olson's final 23
years at the school. And yet it became the defining team in the
history of UA and Arizona college sports.

After eliminating Kansas, the Wildcats survived an overtime game
against Providence and then swept the bluebloods of college
basketball, North Carolina and Kentucky, in a classic Final
Four.

"It was one of the all-time marches," said assistant coach Phil
Johnson, now an assistant coach at UTEP. "Beating Kansas was like a
national championship game to me. And then beating North Carolina
was like a national championship game, too. It's almost like we had
three national championship games. Every game was a mountain to
climb."

Arizona reached the summit when it was least expected. Southern
Arizona was engulfed by the madness. Remember?

• Driving to the airport for a flight to Indianapolis, I stopped
at the corner of Benson Highway and Park Avenue to chat with a man
at a makeshift souvenir stand.

"A guy from Willcox just stopped and bought 20 T-shirts," the
vendor said. "He said you couldn't get them in Willcox and that he
was sure he could sell 50 or 60 of them when he got home. But he
only had money for 20."

• On game day, workers at the Viscount Suites Hotel rolled out
eight big-screen TVs. Fans began to arrive at 12:30, seven hours
before tipoff. By 3 p.m., the capacity of 480 people had been
reached at O'Malley's tavern on North Fourth Avenue and the doors
locked.

• Later that day, the electronics department at the Park Mall
Sears was to close at 9 p.m. That's when the Kentucky-Arizona game
hit the homestretch. Scores of fans stood next to the 25 TV sets,
watching to the end. The store closed an hour late that night.

• After midnight, legendary UCLA coach John Wooden walked in the
lobby of the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Indianapolis. "This was Lute's
turn," he told reporters. "He's been maligned and it's not very
fair. I was very impressed."

• At 5:30 a.m., the morning after the game, I saw freshman guard
Mike Bibby walk out of the Steak N' Shake restaurant in downtown
Indianapolis. He was surrounded by fans, signing autographs in one
hand, chomping a hamburger - breakfast - in another.

• Olson slept for 25 minutes, arose, made himself presentable
and sat for a live shot on Good Morning America. "I didn't want to
sleep," he said. "I wasn't ready to let go."

About 50,000 people jammed into Arizona Stadium later that day,
capping a parade from the airport.

The '97 champs soon splintered, and not all of the splintering
was good or predictable.

MVP Miles Simon would sue the UA, accusing his school of leaking
academic transcripts to a Kansas City newspaper. Beloved sixth-man
Jason Terry, who slept in his jersey the night before the last four
tournament victories, would admit he took money illegally from an
agent. The NCAA forced Arizona to repay $45,000 from 1999 TV
revenues and decreed that Arizona could not retire Terry's
jersey.

Donnell Harris, who played so well as a reserve center in
victories against Providence and Kentucky, was kicked off the team
a year later for off-court issues. And, after returning intact for
1997-98, picked unanimously to win a second championship, the
Wildcats came apart in an embarrassing 25-point loss to Utah in the
'98 Elite Eight.

If nothing else, Arizona's national championship proved that the
magic is the moment. The future would never be as good as those six
unforgettable games in March and April 1997.